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Against the Materialists by Aryāṃśa: चा कमत रोम दारणम् Question by Ugraśravas: What is the Astika response to the chArvAka darshana? Why is their system incorrect? Why is pratyakSha not the only pramANa? Why is the AtmA not just the body, or deha? Why isn’t the chaitanya or the intellect just a composite of the panchabhUtAni or ve elements? Before making any soteriological or ontological claims or assertions, we must ask what is the foundation for those claims. Why are they valid? So the question with which we should begin while establishing the validity of any darshana is how they know what they claim to know? What is their basis for knowledge, is this basis valid in all circumstances, is it non-contradictory? That is, we must begin with epistemology: pramANa-shAstra, the theory of knowledge acquisition. Most religious people across the world might say, ‘Well, I believe in my scriptures, so they’re valid’, thus their foundation of knowledge rests on scripture, and the veracity of scripture rests on it being divine revelation. How do you know it is divine revelation? By faith, they say. This is deism, epistemic veracity is on the basis of faith, devoid of any reason. An application of this might be seen in Pascal’s Wager or the older Indian bauddha version of it; this can be found in the Kalama Sutta. However, this explanation doesn’t satisfy many today, and certainly not the chArvAka, who will call it circular reasoning or begging the question. Before we begin our response, it is important to clarify some terminology. pramA - knowledge; pramANa - a means of acquiring knowledge; prameya - the object to be known; pramAtR - the one doing the knowing Knowledge can be of two kinds: ab priori (from before) and ab posteriori (from after). Apriori knowledge is something which is true either by de nition or true without the need of experience. The famous example in Indian philosophy is “The barren woman has no son”, this statement is tautological, I don’t need to know this women in person, or inquire into her life-story to know she has no sons. That’s because she is barren, or infertile. The predicate “no son” is contained in the subject “barren woman” fi र्वा शि णि वि fi fi Against the Materialists by Aryāṃśa: चा कमत रोम दारणम् Aposteriori knowledge is based on experience, and cannot be something which is true as it stands, without knowledge of any events. For eg: Ashoka was an emperor of the Mauryan dynasty. I can only know this if I have studied history, or I have knowledge of the events *after* they have happened. The former is thus rational, making use of the human faculty of reason, while the latter is empirical, making use of experience. Since the chArvAka reject all apriori knowledge, and reject inference (anumAna) as a pramANa, we must see A) why they do this, and B) whether it is valid to have just pratyakSha as the only pramANa. Unless we do this, it is useless to try to logically prove the existence of a soul or of ishvara to the chArvAka. This is because you cannot use logic to prove something to someone who rejects logic itself. First, I will explain what anumAna (process of inference, inferential syllogism) and anumiti (the inference made) are. In classical canonical nyAya, the anumAna syllogism has ve parts unlike Aristotle’s three; it is a deductive syllogism of course. Let us look at the stock example in Indian logic. 1) The mountain has re (this is the statement to be proven, the pratij~na) 2) Because the mountain has smoke (this is the reasoning for the inference; the hetu or li~Nga) 3) Wherever there is smoke, there is re. i.e - when there is smoke in our kitchen when we cook food, there is also re. (Whatever has smoke has re; this is the d~RiShTaanta or udAharaNa, the example that shows universality of the inference) 4) The mountain is part of ‘whatever, wherever’ i.e - the speci c case falls under the general rule (this is the upanaya or application of the universal concomitance) 5) Thus, the mountain has re (nigamana, the conclusion, thus proved) fi fi fi fi fi fi र्वा शि णि fi वि Against the Materialists by Aryāṃśa: चा कमत रोम दारणम् One important thing has to be discussed here, it is the concept of vyApti or invariable concomitant (at the same time) pervasion. This is the central concept on which the nyAya syllogism rests. The hetu or li~Nga or mark from which you make the inferential observation must be found in all cases where the sAdhya (the thing to be proven: the re) is found, and it’s absence must always mean the absence of the sAdhya. The pakSha (the new subject which we are showing to also have the sAdhya: the mountain) must contain the hetu (the mark: smoke). How do we know that the hetu exists? This can be either by perception, or by testimony, or by another inference. This syllogism can be used for anything where the condition of vyApti is met. Suppose you want to prove that living tigers always eat living things: Syllogism 1: 1) Living tigers eat living things: they are predators 2) Because tigers are obligate carnivores 3) All obligate carnivores eat living things, i.e - the cat eats mouses, and leopards eat deer, the lion eats antelope. 4) The tiger is part of this universal rule 5) Thus, living tigers eat living things Syllogism 2: 1) Living tigers always eat other living things 2) Because the tigers are living 3) What is living must eat to live, i.e - carnivores eat meat, omnivores eat both, herbivores eat vegetables 4) The living tiger falls under this universal rule; it must eat to live 5) Thus, the living tiger always eats living things fi र्वा शि णि वि Against the Materialists by Aryāṃśa: चा कमत रोम दारणम् Likewise, you can have another syllogism to prove that tigers are carnivores as well. Now that we understand the syllogism very well, what is the chArvAka objection to this? Keep in mind, it is only after rejecting anumAna-pramANa that the chArvAka can argue for his system, i.e - empiricism. I’ll summarize the key-points of the chArvAka puurvapakSha (opponent’s argument) from the sarva-darshana-saMgraha and the nyAya- ma~njari of Jayanta (after having checked the original saMskR~ita) Purvapaksha: We, the chArvAka, say that the vyApti (universal connection) itself must be known rst, only then can you make an inference. How do you know this invariable universal concomitance relationship in the rst place that connects the sAdhya to the pakSha ? (i.e - how do you know that where there is smoke there is re?) Further, this vyApti does not cause knowledge by its mere existence as does sense perception, but it causes knowledge by being known Thus, the vyApti must be known. However, we will show that the the vyApti cannot be known by either perception, or by inference, or by the word, or by similarity. To begin with: perception. The vyApti cannot be known by the external sense-organs, because there can be no contact of the sense organs with objects from the past or the future. Since this isn’t possible, there cannot be universal concomitance as we cannot have vyApti for every case to have existed or to exist. We also cannot say the relationship lies with the universal class member (i.e - all women have breasts, so a speci c woman in the past must have had breasts, and one in the future will have breasts too), this is because many members of a universal class don’t have all its characteristics. (i.e - some women don’t have breasts) ना चरमः अ करण ब यत न बा ऽ त ण वृ नुपपतेः Next, perception is always external, there can be no mental perception, because the mind (antas-karaNa) is always dependent on the external senses to know things. It is thus passive, and dependent on the external senses, and external senses can only be valid for objects in the present: not the past or the future. (this is similar to the classic passive-wax arguments of other empiricists like Locke) पि न्तः स्य fi हि रि न्द्रि fi न्त्र त्वे त्द्ये र्थे र्वा स्वा न्त्र्ये शि प्र णि त्य वि fi fi Against the Materialists by Aryāṃśa: चा कमत रोम दारणम् Moving on, we also say that the universal relationship cannot be known by another inference, since that would require another inference to prove it, thus leading to regression ad in nitum. Similarly, we also reject using scripture or testimony of authoritative gures as a pramANa for knowing universal relationships, as that testimony either requires a further inference to prove it, or it depends on the recognition of yet another hetu/mark, thus re-starting the cycle once again, leading in a circle. धूमा नान रम ने वृ मूलतया वा यु ते। त् फ ल म म षधा वत् या कः अत । Therefore, the act of infering re from the presence of smoke can simply be accounted for as being made because of some previous root perception (i.e - where you saw this customary cause-effect happening) or it is simply an error or a false impression. Just like sometimes even mantras (mystical incantations of Brahmins) have a result, or the auguries done on gems (astrology) also show a result. It is, however, merely accidental. purvapaksha-samApti Siddhanta: The fact is that the validity of inference in giving us signi cant knowledge is universally accepted as everyone makes inferences in their daily lives –– from children to farmers to ministers to shopkeepers; it is not just the philosophers who rely on anumiti. A teenage boy who goes to a park, and nds a new ride that comes with say a moderate height of 20 feet that he hasn’t seen before makes an inference that he will be injured if he jumps of after climbing it, instead of taking the ladders to go down. A man who goes to an exotic-food shop makes an inference that he will burn his tongue if he eats a dish that contains a pepper from China that he has never seen before, if the server tells him that it is spicy and because he knows that the pepper class in general contains spice. Similarly, he may go to buy silk and fi ल्प्र दि ति ज्ञा म्भ स्तु न्त णि ग्न्या दि न्त्रौ ज्ञा प्र दि तिः fi प्र fi दृ त्य च्छि क्ष fi स्त भ्रा र्वा त्तु न्त्या शि ज्य fi णि क्व वि चि Against the Materialists by Aryāṃśa: चा कमत रोम दारणम् infer it will make his wife happy because he knows how popular and rare it is, and how women like popular and rare items. If people stop making such inferences, and rely only on pure sense- perception, then it would be impossible for daily-life to go on. Jayanta says that life would grand to a standstill, like a freezeframe of a motion picture. So it seems the question lies not in the use of inference, but in the de nition. The skeptical materialist would likely argue that all these incidents are not inferences, but mere accidents that sometimes are successful and sometimes aren’t. Or, like the Buddhist, he may even argue they are simply chains of cause-effect. The materialist does not realize that his argument is inherently self- refuting, this is because he makes use of inferences to refute the existence of inferences. For example, it is impossible for the materialist who denies all pramANas except bAhyika-pratyakSha (external perception) to even make knowledge claims in his own argument. Meaning, it is impossible for him to use logic (which relies on inference) in his argument to refute our argument. For example, the materialist explains the existence of inferences by calling them “accidents, false impressions or based on root-perception” (yAdR~ichChaka, bhrAnti, pratyakShamuulatA). However, the fact remains this very statement cannot be applied to every single subject-object relationship to every single incident in the universe across space and time. What this means is, the materialist has to admit it is impossible for him to even make a claim that inferences are accidents or false-impressions, since he can never know every single incident by his own sense-perception. Even more so, it’s impossible for him to make use of logic in his arguments, since logic relies on deductive and inductive inferences. What the materialist can make are propositions that are devoid of knowledge claims of certainty. Essentially, this will boil down to vitaNDa and sophistry, as the materialist will try to nd logical faults in our arguments using skepticism, but will not be able to establish a position of his own. He has to however, accept he cannot make knowledge claims about the world that aren’t based on things he himself can perceive. fi fi र्वा शि णि वि Against the Materialists by Aryāṃśa: चा कमत रोम दारणम् Next, the materialist says the mind is passive, and is shaped by the external senses. This also is false. For the external senses simply give us chaotic experiences of the world, where does the ordered unity of thought and knowledge of what we touch and perceive come from? Perception is both phenomenological and epistemological. That is, perception is both the literal act of perceiving something, and the perception of this as a thought. However, let us look at it this way. How is our brain creating thought and knowledge out of a chaotic reception of more than eleven million bits per second, from a ring of a hundred billion neurons? Most research on neuronal information processing shows that out of these eleven million bits of sensation (that the sense organs capture), the brain only processes fty bits per second. How is the mind doing this? How is the clock ticking all the time but you hear it only when you choose to focus on it? How do you hear the same auditory stimulus and can create different knowledge out of it? (i.e - say “ ve and ten”, and the same stimulus can give the answer of either fteen or fty, depending on what the mathematical operation is). Choosing to pick and focus on some sensations, and discarding the rest? How is this information being compressed so quickly? This is only possible if the mind is an active mental organ that literally works on sensation and makes knowledge out of them. And here is the great transcendental logic of Immanuel Kant, as well as the argument put forward by the naiyAyikA-s (Indian logicians). This is what we believe in Hindu Philosophy about the antaHkaraNa as well, that it is an active mental organ that creates knowledge out of sensation, and is not some passive-wax that external perception imprints itself on. Jayanta Bhatta now wraps up the brittle argument of the materialist with his adamantium vajra and smashes it into pieces (his analogy, not mine ;) Essentially, the invariable universal concomitance (vyApti) that is necessary to establish the validity of inference is known to man by his own mind, as the mind has access to all objects in the universe across space and time that the external senses do not. fi fi fi fi र्वा शि णि वि fi Against the Materialists by Aryāṃśa: चा कमत रोम दारणम् Thus also, the relationship of concomitance is one of two universals: the universal of smoke and the universal of re. But, to answer the question of the materialist, it is not necessary to know all the particulars of the class of smoke and re to know that a concomitant relationship that is invariable exists between them. Just like a woman without a breast is still part of the class of woman, so also we don’t need to know whether the smoke is caused by electricity, or by re, or if it has more carbon monoxide content and particulate matter in one factory than another; as long as that smoke belongs to the universal class of smoke, the relationship of invariable pervasion will hold. Finally, we come to one more aw of the materialists argument, that is, they do not account for abstract immaterial universals such as math and morality in their system. Let us grant that the materialists reject absolute morality for whatever his reasons, but he cannot reject mathematics. Mathematics, the purest of the natural sciences, is both universal and immaterial. That is, the materialist cannot perceive a perfect triangle or perfect Pythagorean triplet, or even perceive the basic laws of math, but he must deal with the frustration that they all work, and he relies on them in his daily-life to even conduct any form of business. Thus, the materialist is frustrated as he cannot account for the existence of universal immaterials like mathematics in a materialist universe. No matter where the sun rises or if it even rises or not, ve plus ve will always be ten. Mathematics tells us truths, which are synthetic and necessary, and which are always certain. (For that matter, see Shankara when he says that not even a hundred shrutis will make re become cold and ice become hot). No past or present experience can violate pure mathematics. So the materialist is left with the perplexion of having to explain how abstract immaterial universals that are not dependent on sensory experience and are absolutely certain for all experiences can exist in a materialist universe. Not only do they exist, but the materialist has to make use of immaterial universals to even live his life. What is his solution? None. For us, it is easy to ground these universals such as mathematics and morality in Brahman, but the materialist does not believe an underlying metaphysical universal of all universals such as Brahman exists. fi fi fi fl fi fi र्वा शि fi णि वि Against the Materialists by Aryāṃśa: चा कमत रोम दारणम् With this, I believe we have refuted the chArvAkas with enough certainty in most of their objections. We could have discussed a lot more things in this document (such as all the proofs for God or a soul, or for universal morality), but it’s simply not necessary and goes out of the scope of our original aim. I hope this document serves as a valuable guide for all Hindus, as well as non-Hindus, who may, on rst glance, be taken in by the sirens of the lokAyatas. alam vistareNa. samApti: fi र्वा शि णि वि